Implications of the submarine eruption off El Hierro on seaweed performance

At the end of 2012, a submarine eruption started south offshore El Hierro Island (eastern Canary Islands). Despite the large social concern that the eruption caused, it has provided us scientists with an incredible opportunity to work out the effects of such singular events on the performance of a range of organisms. In our case, we studied anatomical and physiological responses by two conspicuous seaweeds (Lobophora variegata and Padina pavonica) living in the intertidal. Our results demonstrated a large resilience of both seaweeds to the event despite large temporal affections for the anatomy and the photobiology of both seaweeds during the eruptive phase. The reference is: S. Betancor, Tuya, F., Gil-Díaz, T., Figueroa, F.L., Haroun, R. 2014. Effects of a submarine eruption on the performance of two brown seaweeds. Journal of Sea Research 87: 68–78. Feel free to download the paper from the “articles” section.